Michael Stackpole - Of Limited Loyalty

“Yes, please, Owen. Shut the door, if you don’t mind.”

Owen complied with the request. “Are you well, Highness?”

Vlad sighed, more with resignation than weariness and just a hint of frustration. “I shall put it to you directly. Bishop Bumble ordered me to order you to attend services every Sunday from this week hence.”

“ Ordered you, Highness?”

“That’s not all. Owen, I trust you implicitly, but I have a very difficult task to request of you.”

“Anything, Highness.”

“Don’t say that until you hear me out.” The Prince hunched forward on his chair. “While you have been away, I have learned some things which some people would find disturbing. I need your help to determine if there is a cause for concern. If you do choose to participate, however, you cannot say anything to your wife. She must remain completely ignorant, for her sake and the sake of your daughter. If Bumble gets wind of what we are doing, he will go after us as he is going after the Steward. The only way your wife and daughter will survive is if they can deny everything. So, there is the question: Can you lie to your wife? Can you keep a secret from her?”

Owen exhaled slowly. “If it were not important, you would not ask. You said you trust me, Highness. I trust you. If this is part of the duty you demand from me, no one will have word from me of anything.”

“It could destroy your marriage.”

“Will what you ask save Mystria?”

Vlad nodded solemnly. “I believe it may be the only way to save Mystria. From Branch, from Bumble, perhaps from the Crown itself.”

“I can keep a secret from her.” For Mystria, for Miranda’s future. He smiled. “To save Mystria, I’ll even stay awake during Bumble’s sermons.”

Vlad stood and clapped him on both shoulders. “I hate putting this burden upon you, Owen. I truly do. The situation is simple: Bumble wants the Steward dead because the Steward has uncovered knowledge about magick which the Church wants to remain a secret. Magick, right now, is limited by the spells we are taught by instructors sanctioned by the Church. We are led to believe these are the only spells, and they’re of marginal importance, relatively speaking. But you’ve seen that the Shedashee have a different approach to magick.”

Owen nodded. “And the Norghaest, they might have yet another approach. I will explain, Highness, but suffice it to say, for now, that Rufus Branch may have been using their magick. Heck, he might even be one.”

“Ah, so this becomes even more delicate.” Vlad shook his head. “Bumble wants the Steward dead to put an end to the possibility of his revealing the secret. The problem is, I believe I have learned it. This makes me as much of a danger in the eyes of the Church as Ezekiel Fire.”

Owen nodded. “Bumble doesn’t know that yet, so following his orders will lull him into a false sense of security.”

“Precisely. We need time to figure out how to use what Fire knows, and to figure out what happened at Happy Valley.”

Visions of blood and fire flooded back into Owen’s mind. “I’ve learned some things which I can share in that regard, Highness. The most important of them is this: if we are going to stop the Norghaest, we have very little time in which to do it.”

25 June 1767 Tanner and Hound, Temperance Temperance Bay, Mystria

Nathaniel wasn’t sure if the Tanner and Hound’s ale had gotten worse since he’d been gone, but it certainly hadn’t gotten any better. Compared to salksasi he might as well have been drinking weak tea, but he’d never been given much to drinking to the point of drunkenness. While he could recall, dimly, some memories of fun times he’d had when a bit drunk, he couldn’t really remember a time when any good had come from drinking too much.

Even so, he raised his mug to Caleb Frost. “You are a most kind gentleman, Caleb, offering to slake my thirst.”

Caleb drank, then set his own mug down. “Not wholly altruistic, Nathaniel. I was hoping I could get some comments from you for the Gazette.”

“Ain’t really sure there’s much I can contribute.”

“I understand there might be confidences involved. I won’t have you break your word, but there are some things you might be able to say.” Caleb pulled a small journal and a pencil from his coat pocket. “You were there when Bishop Bumble risked life and limb to arrest the heretic Ephraim Fox.”

Only through a mighty effort did Nathaniel refrain from spewing ale all over Caleb. He swallowed hard, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I was there, but I don’t remember no risk save maybe the Bishop getting perilously close to water. If he’d gone in, he’d have sunk like a stone.” And I’d have gladly held him under.

A low growl issued from Caleb’s throat. “The Bishop made some comments when he welcomed Bishop Harder from Bounty and Southfield from Blackwood. They praised him for his courage. Bumble described Fox as a notorious and dangerous man responsible for the deaths of hundreds, and a man guilty of sedition, treason, and heresy. While the Court Ecclesiastic can only address the heresy charge, the other charges are going to weigh on the minds of the Tribunal.”

“Who all is they having prosecute the Steward?”

“Bumble will head the tribunal, so Benjamin Beecher will prosecute.”

Nathaniel raised an eyebrow. “Even with a friendly court, I wouldn’t be thinking Beecher’s the man for that job.”

“He’s changed since he went with us to Fort Cuivre, Nathaniel. It may have been slow coming, and isn’t much of a change, but he’s harder than you’d expect.”

Nathaniel shrugged. Not being a churchgoer, if he’d seen Beecher more than once a year in the last three he’d have been surprised. Those meetings were by accident and over very fast. “Anyone going to defend Fire?”

Caleb shrugged. “No one has stepped forward. Bumble got permission to use the old Regimental armory building for a jail. I went over to talk to Fire, but without Bumble’s permission, I was not allowed in. No one doubts he’ll be convicted, so I don’t think anyone wants to risk earning the Bishop’s ire by interfering. You could do it, though.”

“Well, I reckon you know ’xactly how lettered I is, Caleb. I’d just make it worse for the Steward.” Nathaniel traced a finger through the wet circle his tankard had left on the table. “Pity, too, because the Steward, he ain’t a bad sort. I look outside, I see Thursday. The Steward, he sees Wednesday or Friday, maybe both all mixed up, but he ain’t a bad man. When Bumble arrested him, he could have run off and the Bishop never would have caught him. He didn’t. I think he believes God will see him through this.”

“You traveled with him. You truly think he’s a good man?”

The scout thought for a moment. “He stopped me from shooting Rufus Branch dead, which I could let be judged either way. I guess the man always was looking to help folks and promote peace. And the folks what died at Piety, he done took that on as a burden himself. Now, he was happy they was in Heaven, but sad that they died; and he done saved Colonel Rathfield’s life.”

“How did the Colonel get injured?”

Nathaniel held his hands up. “I don’t reckon I can say nothing about that.”

Caleb leaned forward. “Here’s the problem. Six weeks ago he arrives home. No one is saying how. We know he didn’t walk with that leg. So people are asking questions. When they don’t have answers, they make things up.”

“I see what you’re saying.” Nathaniel nodded, then sat back and raised his voice a bit. “Colonel Rathfield? I can tell you this: there was a night out there when there was just five of us trapped in a little draw thick with dire wolves. Packs might run to ten or a dozen, this was three of them, maybe four, all come together. Well Makepeace and me, Captain Strake and Kamiskwa, we all done kilt our share in the past, so we knows what we’s facing. And it was a hard fight. We was close to being overwhelmed when Colonel Rathfield he just ups and leaps on in. You ain’t never seen a man fight like that. He musta thought they was Ryngian Laureates, the way he went after them. When all was said and done, we skinned so many that we couldn’t carry all the hides; and the bulk of them belong to the Colonel.”